Good Omens has gone down a treat since it was first released on Amazon Prime last Friday, with fans of the original novel loving the faithful yet fresh adaptation of the apocalyptic comedy-drama. The highlight of the show though has to be David Tennant and Michael Sheen’s chemistry as Crowley and Aziraphale, the demon and angel who team up to prevent Armageddon.
Thanks to their close bond, Good Omens is essentially a love story. And that’s something Sheen was very keen to bring out in the narrative while making the series. In an interview with The Telegraph, the actor explained that he wanted to play Aziraphale as being “in love” with Crowley, as the immortal duo have grown very close over their thousands of years on Earth.
“I wanted to play Aziraphale being sort of in love with Crowley. They’re both very bonded and connected anyway, because of the two of them having this relationship through history – but also because angels are beings of love, so it’s inevitable that he would love Crowley. It helped that loving David is very easy to do.”
When asked to clarify if he meant a romantic or erotic sense of love, Sheen joked that those labels don’t apply to celestial beings. Though he is aware that fans will likely imagine the characters having a steamy love affair.
“Oh, those are human, mortal labels! But that was what I thought would be interesting to play with. There’s a lot of fan fiction where Aziraphale and Crowley get a bit hot and heavy towards each other, so it’ll be interesting to see how an audience reacts to what we’ve done in bringing that to the screen.”
Sheen’s comments echo showrunner Neil Gaiman’s own answer to the question of how Aziraphale and Crowley really feel about each other. The writer was asked on Twitter if they were gay, to which Gaiman responded that the term wasn’t accurate as they aren’t “two human males.” When another fan asked him if they’re in love, though, Gaiman answered: “Absolutely.”
It seems that the creators of the series envisage Aziraphale and Crowley’s deep connection as something transcending our human understanding of love then. Either that, or they wanted to encourage lots of fan fiction and fan art for Good Omens.